by Mary Balogh
"In the middle of a ball when she has had so many partners?" Lord Wendell asked in some disbelief.
"I am afraid it would be just like Angela to do such a thing," Mrs. Wickenham said. "And I do believe she has been somewhat unhappy about ..." She looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, young girls very easily fancy themselves heartbroken."
"Should we not organize a large search party?" the countess asked.
"By no means," Mrs. Wickenham said. "That would quite ruin this splendid ball. If Lord Crensford has searched the greenhouses and you have both searched the house, ma'am, she must be at either the pavilion or the castle. And if Lord Kenwood and Mrs. Ingram have gone to search the pavilion, and Lord Crensford has gone to the castle, then I believe that everything is in hand. We should return and dance before other people start asking questions."
The countess looked uncertainly at the earl, and Viscount Wendell was biting his lower lip, a habit he had when he was worried. But Mrs. Wickenham's words seemed sensible. There was no point in giving way to panic.
"So, my dear," the earl said to the countess as he led her back into the ballroom, "it seems that both pairs of lovers have the perfect opportunity to discover one another if only they have the sense to do so."
"Oh, but I did not intend this, Rotherham," she said. "Jack and Diana are on their way to the pavilion, it is true. But I intended for Ernest and Angela to meet in the greenhouses. I am not happy about this at all."
''But the castle is a very romantic setting,'' he said, patting her hand.
"But in a storm?" she said. "And she is a very young lady, dearest, to be so far from home with only a gentleman for company. They will be forced to marry."
"But that is what you wanted, is it not, dear heart?" he asked.
"Yes, of course," she said. "But not because they have to. Because they wish to."
"I have never known you to have any doubts about your matchmaking schemes before," he said.
"But this is not my scheme," she said. "This is more daring than anything I would have set up, dearest. With Diana it is different. But Angela is scarcely out of the schoolroom.''
"Then I daresay we will just have to have faith in the ultimate triumph of true love," the earl said, leading her onto the floor where new sets were forming.
* * *
Lord Crensford stopped only long enough to don a heavy cloak and to saddle his horse. Then he was galloping toward the castle in a thoroughly reckless fashion, considering the fact that the heavy clouds that had rolled in had made the night so dark that he could scarcely see a foot in front of his horse's nose. But his mother had always claimed that he could find his way to and about the castle blindfold.
The wind whipped into his face and the rain began to fall in large drops that promised a downpour at any minute. Flashes of lightning occasionally lit his way, and thunder rumbled around him.
He tethered his horse almost by instinct in a spot where it was likely to have most shelter from the storm and raced across the causeway just as the rain began to come down in earnest. A quick glance up to the battlements showed no dark figure up there, and another into the dry moat revealed no body—though, of course, it was so dark that he might well have missed something.
"Miss Wickenham!" he roared against the wind as soon as he was inside the courtyard. "Miss Wickenham! Angela!"
What if he were mistaken? What if she had gone somewhere else? What if she was already dead? Floating in the moat at the back, perhaps.
A jagged flash of lightning lit the sky, and the thunder cracked no more than a few seconds later. The rain grew heavier.
"AN-GE-LAAA!"
"Yes," a high-pitched voice replied. "I am here."
"Where?"
"Here."
He followed the sound of her voice to one of the round bastions. He had to feel for the doorway before stepping inside.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"H-here." Hands pawed at his cloak, and then she was inside it and inside his coat, and burrowing against his chest, her arms locking about his waist. "D-don't be angry with me. Don't be angry with me." Her teeth chattered loudly, cutting off the possibility of further speech.
"Whatever do you mean by this," he shouted at her, wrapping his arms about her with unnecessary tightness considering the fact that she could not possibly have been closer to him, "you stupid, empty-headed numbskull? I thought for sure you would be dead. I should throttle you right here and now. I have never in all my life known such a little pest. How do you think I would have felt having to take your lifeless body back home to your mama?"
"Don't be angry with me," she whispered, her head pressed to his waistcoat. "Don't be angry with me."
"You couldn't stay in the ballroom, could you?" he fumed. "You had all those young sprigs sighing over you, but that wasn't enough. No, you had to create a greater sensation. You had to come out here to throw yourself off the battlements because you think that is a romantic way to die. Someone should take a whip to you."
''Don't be angry with me. Don't be angry with me." And as another flash of lightning lit the inside of the tower, and she burrowed her head even closer, "Hold me. Oh, hold me. I-I'm f-frightened of storms."
Lord Crensford, still quivering with mingled anger and relief, searched for and found her mouth in the darkness. He immediately recoiled. What the devil was he about? But it was a warm and soft and trembling mouth, and he saw it and the rest of her white, frightened face in another flash of lightning. He set one hand behind her head and found her mouth again.
"It's all right; it's all right," he murmured against the side of her face a minute or two later, as he. wrapped the cloak right around the both of them. "You're safe with me now. You don't have to be frightened."
"You aren't angry with me anymore?" she asked, her head finding its resting place against his chest.
"I thought you were going to kill yourself," he said. "I thought you were going to go up there and jump. You foolish, pestilential girl. Why on earth did you come out here? I ought to wring your neck."
"I was unhappy," she said. "I wanted to be alone."
"Unhappy?" he said scornfully. "With all those admirers?"
"I was unhappy," she said. "You are not still angry with me?"
"Listen to that rain!" he said, spreading his hand firmly over the back of her head while another flash of lightning was succeeded almost immediately by a loud crash of thunder. ''We are going to be stuck here for an hour at least. We had better sit down."
"The ground is awfully hard," she said, as he took her down with him, and tucked her against his side, his cloak still wrapped around them both. He had his back set against a wall.
He leaned across her, one arm about her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, and lifted her across to sit on his lap. He cradled her head against his shoulder.
"You realize you will have to marry me after this?" he said.
"Oh, no," she said, trying to lift her head. But he held it where it was with a firm hand. "No, that is not so. You need not do it. And if you do, I shall refuse."
"Am I the reason you were unhappy?" he asked, his mouth close to her ear.
"It doesn't matter," she said.
"It matters." He teased her earlobe with his lips. "Was it me, Angela?"
"You are always so cross," she said. "I have been longing and longing to come here now that I am all grown up. I wanted to impress you. But you are always angry with me."
"I'm not angry now," he said before finding her mouth again and making full use of it for another minute.
"I thought I would never be eighteen," she said. "I dreaded all the time that Claudia would write to say you had married someone else. And then we came here. And you were cross with me. And you were in love with Mrs. Ingram."
"With Diana?" he said. "Do you have no sense at all? She is my sister-in-law. She was Teddy's wife."
"You don't love her?"
"No, of course I don't love her," he said scornfully. "Only as a sis
ter. Not as I love you."
There was a silence rather longer than that necessitated by another crash of thunder.
"Well mere!" he said. "Now what have you made me say? You would probably exasperate me every day of my life. And I would doubtless be jealous of every man who set eyes on you. And you would probably be always telling me that I am angry with you when I am not angry at all but only afraid of losing you. I'm not near good-looking enough for you. My nose is too big. And my hair will never lie flat. And I'm not bright as Clarence is and as Teddy was. And . . ." He blew air out of puffed cheeks
as lightning flashed and thunder rolled. "Will you marry me?"
She had somehow burrowed her face against his neck. Her breath tickled him as she talked. "I always think of you as a knight in splendid armor riding home from battle," she said, "and stopping at the end of the causeway to look up to the battlements where I have been watching for you for many weary months. Four weary years, in fact. You will always be my splendid knight."
"What a silly little female you are," he said. "I have never heard anything so corkbrained in my whole life."
"Yes, Ernest."
"Yes?"
"Yes, I will marry you."
"You will?"
"Yes."
"Well," Lord Crensford said, managing to wiggle her head out from beneath his chin so that he could kiss her again, "and so you should say yes. You have got yourself into a dreadfully compromising situation here, you know. And all through your own foolishness. I don't suppose you stopped for one minute to think about it before you came, did you? Oh, no, act first, think later seems to be your motto."
"Don't be angry with me," she said, one arm venturing out from the warm shelter of the cloak to wrap itself around his neck. "Don't be angry with me, Ernest. I love you."
"And so you should," he said gruffly before finally claiming his kiss. "I don't marry females who don't love me."
16
"So, it is as I thought," the Marquess of Kenwood said, hanging up the lantern inside the door of the pavilion and removing his cloak in order to shake the raindrops from it. "She is not here."
They had reached the pavilion beside the river just as the rain started to fall in earnest. A quick glance had shown them that the building was empty. A series of calls from the doorway had made it obvious that Angela was nowhere in the vicinity.
"I knew you were right," Diana said, also removing her damp cloak, "as soon as you suggested that this was one of my mother-in-law's schemes. We should have gone back.'' Her last words were almost drowned in a loud rumble of thunder.
"And spoiled her evening?" Lord Kenwood said. "That would have been quite unsporting of us, Diana."
"Well," she said, looking about her and thinking not for the first time how absurd it was to have a building so splendidly furnished in the middle of the woods, "the countess seems to have played into your hands, sir. This is the kind of opportunity you have been waiting for two weeks, is it not?" She seated herself on an elegant Queen Anne chair and looked with what she hoped was cool nonchalance
at her companion.
"Unfair, Diana, unfair," he said, strolling across the small room to seat himself on a comfortable sofa. "I do believe you have wanted the opportunity as much as I. But I don't intend to argue the matter with you. I shall surprise you and behave like a perfect gentleman. What shall we talk about?"
She stared at him and could not think of a single thing to say.
"This looks promising," he said, one eyebrow raised. "The weather? That is a safe topic and one that allows for endless profound comments. Do you suppose this storm will be short and sharp? Or will it turn into a night of steady rain? What is your considered opinion?"
"It is raining too heavily to last," she said. "I believe it will be over in an hour."
"Ah," he said. "We have the makings of a protracted discussion here. I disagree, you see. I believe that after the thunder and lightning have passed, the rain will fail to take the hint. I predict typical English drizzle for a fortnight."
Diana was stuck for words again.
Lord Kenwood drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa. "You are not much of a conversationalist, are you, Diana?" he said. "Shall we try a different topic? Or perhaps you would like to sing? Shall we take turns, or shall we try our duet again? ft is a pity we did not learn a whole repertoire, is it not?"
"How absurd!" Diana said rather crossly.
"And how ungrateful!" the marquess said, both eyebrows raised. "I am trying to save you from a fate worse than death, Diana, by distracting my mind, and you accuse me of being absurd. I am mortally offended. Are you afraid of the storm, by the way? I have two perfectly free arms with which to shelter you if you are."
"No, thank you," Diana said, "I am not."
"I did-not think you would be," he said. "A pity. No, perhaps not a pity. If I were to touch you, I might find it impossible not at least to try to ravish you. It is a dreadful fate to be a notorious rake, Diana. We have so little self-control when confronted with beautiful ladies inside secluded buildings in the dead of night and in the middle of a storm.''
Diana's lips compressed. "You always speak with that tone of levity," she said. "Is nothing serious to you?"
One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. "I am taking this situation far more seriously than you seem to realize, Diana," he said. "I am filling the silence, my dear. What is the alternative? You know as well as I do that if silence falls between us, I shall walk over there and kiss you. And we both know where that is likely to lead. Is that what you want?"
"I am surprised that you even ask me," she said tartly. "Are you trying to tell me that it is not what you want?"
"Ah, Diana,'' he said,' 'you are a coward. Are you afraid to answer my question? Must you merely throw it back in my teeth?" He grinned at her.
Diana jumped and gripped the arms of her chair when a particularly vicious flash of lightning was succeeded almost immediately by the crash of thunder.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"No."
''What are you going to do?" he asked.' 'When mis house party is at an end, I mean."
"I shall go back home," she said.
"To your father's house?" he asked. "How do you plan to find another husband?"
She looked at him, feeling herself flush. "Finding a husband is not the whole goal of my life," she said. "And I don't think I can discuss the matter with you."
"I shall miss you," he said.
She smiled fleetingly. "I doubt it," she said. "The world is full of barmaids and chambermaids and ladies' maids and ladies who are not satisfied with the lives they lead."
He set one elbow on the back of the sofa and rested his mouth on his knuckles. He looked at her consideringly. "You don't believe in mincing words, do you?" he said. "The world is not full of Diana Ingrams, though."
"Perhaps that is as well for you," she said. "Perhaps if it were, life would not seem so easy to you. Or such a joke."
The storm must have been directly overhead. The lightning and thunder happened simultaneously, and the pavilion shook. Lord Kenwood was off me sofa and across to Diana's chair before either of them could think. His hands came down to cover hers, which had a death grip on the arms.
"Oh, Diana," he said when the sound of the thunder had faded, ''I have tried not to do this, believe me.'' He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. And lifted his head almost immediately, though he did not fully straighten up. "So, shall I continue? Or do you wish to pull one hand from beneath mine and slap my face?"
There was no mockery in his blue eyes, only a sort of wariness. Diana could neither remove her eyes from his nor answer his questions.
"We were in the middle of a waltz," he said. "I like waltzing, and you do it well. Complete it with me now." He straightened up and held out a hand for hers.
"Here? But there is no room." Diana laughed a little shakily. "And no music."
"There is plenty of room for one couple to dance around th
e sofa," he said. "And I will provide the music if you will not. Come, Diana."
She put her hand in his and got to her feet. She rested one hand on his shoulder when his came behind her waist, and felt herself flushing as he grinned down at her. When a crash of thunder had passed, he began to hum the very tune they had been dancing to when the Countess of Rotherham had interrupted them. They circled the small room.
But it somehow became easier in the cramped space if instead of holding her hand out to the side, he spread it flat against his heart, his own covering it, and if instead of keeping the obligatory space between them, he drew her against him. And her elbow was less likely to catch against something if she moved her arm right up about his neck. And his cheek had nowhere else to rest except against hers.
